He paced the apartment, the wood floors cold beneath his bare feet.
Fuck it. This was inevitable, anyway. They’d never been meant to be together.
Except that the dull, thudding ache in his chest told him otherwise.
She belonged to him.
No.
“Fuck,” he muttered, stalking into the bedroom and grabbing a shirt and his running shoes, shoving his feet into them.
He needed to run. Just fucking run this off—the thoughts and emotions he had no control over.
He grabbed his keys and a small water bottle and headed downstairs, his shoes making a slapping sound on the old wood treads. He shot out the front door and went into a full run as he hit the streets, the lack of warm-up making his muscles go tight, but he needed it. If he slowed down, his brain would catch up with him.
Can’t handle it right now. Not now.
His bad leg began to ache right away, but he didn’t care. He kept running, his feet hitting the damp pavement—it must have rained at some point in the night. He could smell it all around him. Damp cement, the scent of the old bricks and plaster on the buildings he passed. The green scent of the flowers and plants and weeds that grew in pots on porches and balconies, in every possible crevice. He drew in a deep breath, wanting the damp and the green to cool his burning lungs. He should have started out slower, he knew. But right now all that mattered was running as fast and hard as he could.
Ha. That was fucking obvious.
Don’t think about it. Nothing is going to make sense now.
Not his anger at Allie for taking off. Not his anger at himself for being an asshole to the woman he loved.
Fucking loved!
Still. Always.
Allie.
That was never going to change. What had changed was that she finally understood what he was and wasn’t capable of. And she was telling him loud and clear she wasn’t having it. He didn’t blame her.
Except that he did.
He was fucking mad. Hell, he was in a rage.
He needed to fight. Needed to purge the animal from his body, from his Goddamn soul. And he knew exactly where to go.
He was about to change direction when he realized his feet had already taken him down Dauphine to Canal Street. He crossed Canal, still quiet this early in the day, and Dauphine turned into Baronne. He ran on, his lungs on fire, toward the Pontchartrain Expressway and the row of warehouses that housed the private fight club hidden in the underbelly of the city.
He headed south, following the line of the freeway, his mind empty of everything now but his absolute need to hit something, anything. To be hit back. He needed it—to feel his fist connecting. To have some of the piss knocked out of him. Needed not to think, to feel. And nothing made him go numb better than fighting.
He flexed his fingers, almost dropping his water bottle when he got to the club. There was no address on the old corrugated metal structure. The big door was closed, but he knew there was someone to be found inside at almost any time of day or night.
He paused outside, sweat dripping into his eyes, and he tasted salt. He shook his head, shook the sweat out of his hair, took a swig from his water bottle and pushed the door aside. And walked into the darkness.
CHAPTER Eleven
SHE WOKE TO a dull throb in her head.
Bang, bang, bang.
Blearily, she glanced at the clock on her nightstand and found she’d only slept an hour.
Bang, bang, bang.
She should get up and take some ibuprofen for her aching head. Too bad they didn’t make a medicine for an aching heart.
She rolled over and realized she was still lying on top of the covers, fully dressed. She’d come home and fallen onto her bed, turned on Travel TV and mostly just stared at it, unfocused, pretending not to think, crying a little. But not too much. She just wouldn’t stand for much of the damn crying.
“Allie?”
The voice was muffled, and it was then she realized the banging was the front door.
Not Mick. Thank God.
And fuck, why not Mick?
She ran a hand through her hair as she padded on bare feet to the door.
“Allie, it’s Jamie. You in there?”
“Hang on.”
She checked her reflection in the hall mirror. She looked like hell. She shrugged helplessly before turning to open the door. The morning sunlight made her squint.
“Hi, Jamie.”
“Jesus. You sick or something?”
She shook her head and stepped aside to let him in. “I don’t know. Maybe the ‘or something,’” she mumbled as he moved past her into the house.
“I brought you some coffee and beignets from Café Du Monde. Maybe that’ll help?”
She followed him into the kitchen, where he set the cardboard tray of paper coffee cups on the table, as well as a white paper bag.
“They smell good.”
He pulled her in for a hug, and she burrowed into his arms and immediately felt like crying. But she would not do it. She would not.
“Hey, you okay, sweetheart?”
She nodded into his chest.
He squeezed her shoulders. “Allie?”
“I will be.”
“That sounds cryptic. You want to talk to me about it?”
She nodded against his chest again. “Okay,” she said, her voice muffled.
“Okay. Let’s sit down and we’ll both get some coffee in us.”
He helped her into a chair, then pulled out another and folded himself into it, trying unsuccessfully to tuck his long legs under the table, finally settling on sprawling them out to the side and leaning his back against the table.
Allie sipped at her chicory-laced coffee, grimaced.
“Is it a sugar day?” Jamie asked, already getting up to poke through the cupboards.
It touched her that he remembered she only took sugar in her coffee when she was stressed.
“Top cupboard on the right, bottom shelf,” she directed him.
He came back with the Tupperware she kept the sugar in—it was too humid in the old house to keep it in a bowl—and a spoon and offered it to her. She added a good rounded spoonful to her cup and stirred.
“Better?”
“Yes. Thanks.”
“So?”
She shrugged. “This thing with Mick . . . it’s not going so well.”
“We both knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”
“Yes, but I don’t think I realized it might actually be impossible.”
“Is that how you’re feeling right now?” Jamie asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know. We started getting closer—too close, maybe—and he totally shut down on me. One minute we were perfectly fine, then suddenly there was this glaring disconnect. And he can’t seem to come back from it. I was with him last night and it was . . .” She paused, her throat closing up. She ran her hands through her hair, pulling it tight, needing the sensation—the little bit of pain—to help her loosen up enough to say the words. After several moments she let it go. “It was bad, Jamie. I was up all night thinking about it. And this morning I just . . . left.”
“What do you mean?”
“I got up and sort of . . . snuck out while he was still sleeping.”
Jamie chuckled quietly. “Oh, he’s going to love that—Mr. Control Freak.”
“He hasn’t tried to call.”
“Either his ego is too sore or he’s too pissed off.”
“That’s his problem,” she said, anger suffusing her. “I’m tired of being the one to babysit things along. We’re supposed to be reconnecting but I can’t be the one who does all the work.”
Jamie put a hand on her arm. “Calm down, sweetheart. I’m with you on this one.”
“I know. So tell me—what do I do?”
“Honestly, leaving may have been the best bet. We guys are cavemen—we need to retreat when we’re overwhelmed, and it sounds like that’s what he’s doing.”